peel

• IPA^(key): /piːl/
  • IPA^(key): [pʰiːɫ], [pʰiəɫ]

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːl
• Homophone: peal

From Middle English pelen itself from Old English pilian and Old French peler, pellier, both from Latin pilō, pilāre (“to remove hair from, depilate”), from pilus (“hair”).

peel (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)

1. (transitive) To remove the skin or outer covering of.

   I sat by my sister's bed, peeling oranges for her.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     The skillful shepherd peeled me certain wands.

2. (transitive) To remove something from the outer or top layer of.

   I peeled (the skin from) a banana and ate it hungrily.

   We peeled the old wallpaper off in strips where it was hanging loose.

3. (intransitive) To become detached, come away, especially in flakes or strips; to shed skin in such a way.

   I had been out in the sun too long, and my nose was starting to peel.

4. (intransitive) To remove one's clothing.

   The children peeled by the side of the lake and jumped in.

5. (intransitive) To move, separate (off or away).

   The scrum-half peeled off and made for the touchlines.

• (remove outer covering): skin, strip
• (remove clothing): disrobe, strip

peel (countable and uncountable, plural peels)

1. (usually uncountable) The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc.
2. (countable, rugby) The action of peeling away from a formation.
3. (countable) A cosmetic preparation designed to remove dead skin or to exfoliate.

• (skin of a fruit): rind, zest

• orange peel
• peel strength

From Middle English peel, pele, from Anglo-Norman pel (compare modern French pieu), from Latin palus (“stake”). Doublet of pole.

peel (plural peels)

1. (obsolete) A stake.
2. (obsolete) A fence made of stakes; a stockade.
3. (archaic) A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep.

• peel-house, peelhouse
• peel-tower

From Old French pele (modern French pelle), from Latin pāla, from the base of plangere (“fix, plant”).

peel (plural peels)

1. A shovel or similar instrument, now especially a pole with a flat disc at the end used for removing pizza or loaves of bread from a baker's oven.
2. A T-shaped implement used by printers and bookbinders for hanging wet sheets of paper on lines or poles to dry.
3. (archaic, US) The blade of an oar.

Origin unknown.

peel (plural peels)

1. (Scotland, curling) An equal or match; a draw.
2. (curling) A takeout which removes a stone from play as well as the delivered stone.

peel (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)

1. (curling) To play a peel shot.

Named from Walter H. Peel, a noted 19th-century croquet player.

peel (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)

1. (croquet) To send through a hoop (of a ball other than one's own).

Misspelling of peal.

peel (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)

1. Misspelling of peal: to sound loudly.
   • 1825 June 25, "My Village Bells", in The Circulator of Useful Knowledge, Literature, Amusement, and General Information number XXVI, available in, 1825, The Circulator of Useful Amusement, Literature, Science, and General Information, page 401,

     Oh ! still for me let merry bells peel out their holy chime;

   • 1901 January 1, "Twentieth Century's Triumphant Entry", The New York Times, page 1,

     The lights flashed, the crowds sang,... bells peeled, bombs thundered,... and the new Century made its triumphant entry.

   • 2006, Miles Richardson, Being-In-Christ and Putting Death in Its Place, Louisiana State University Press, →ISBN, pages 230–231,

     As the tiny Virgin... approaches one of the barrio churches, bells peel vigorously, a brass band launches into a fast-paced tune, and large rockets zoom... .

Old French piller (“pillage”).

peel (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)

1. (archaic, transitive) To plunder; to pillage, rob.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     But govern ill the nations under yoke, / Peeling their provinces.

   • 1645, James Howell, “England’s Tears, for the Present Wars, which for the Nature of the Quarrel, the Quality of the Strength, the Diversity of Battels, Skirmishes, Encounters, and Sieges, (Happened in so Short a Compasse of Time) Cannot be Parallel’d in Any Precedent Age”, in ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ [DENDROLOGIA]: Dodona’s Grove, or The Vocall Forrest. The Third Edition More Exact and Perfect than the Former; with the Addition of Two Other Tracts: viz. Englands Tears for the Present Wars. And The Pre-eminence of Parlements, 3rd edition, Cambridge: Printed by R. D. for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Prince's Arms in S. Pauls Church-yard, OCLC 931321630, page 189:

     O conſider my caſe, moſt blisfull Queen, […] Diſpell thoſe Clouds which hover 'twixt my King and his higheſt Counſell, […] that my great Law-making Court be forced to turn no more to polemicall Committees, […] but that they may come again to the old Parliamentary Rode, To the path of their Predeceſſours, to conſult of means how to ſweep away thoſe Cobwebs that hang in the Courts of Juſtice, and to make the Laws run in their right Channell; to retrench exceſſive fees, and finde remedies for the future, that the poor Client be not ſo peeled by his Lawyer, and made to ſuffer by ſuch monſtrous delays, that one may go from one Tropick to the other, and croſſe the Equinoctiall twenty times, before his ſute be done; […]

• peel out

• LEEP, Leep, Lepe, Pele, leep

peel

1. shovel